Noise on the Olympus OMD EM 1 II

Bruce DW wrote:

mostlyboringphotog wrote:

If you can upload the RAW file (dropbox?), I would try to process it with with DxO PL4.

See what comes of it,,,

That would be fantastic. Thanks so much.

https://1drv.ms/u/s!AlQzVfZ549zepI4HASQaQf50p2ISpQ?e=whVioZ

Others have already done a better job to analyze your "noise" but since I said I would work on it, here is my rendition... I added TOPAZ Sharpen AI

I think your "noise" is more of the processing artefact.

And good luck!!

Bruce DW wrote:

shinndigg wrote:

... Why f9.0?

Why is 1250 in broad daylight?

Was this very underexposed? And was that purposefully?

I'm rather embarrased to say that I had the thing set to shutter priority, determined to rule any possibility of lens shake. Everything else played second fiddle. And I realise that is probably the root of my problem. Thanks for asking the hard questions.

No problem... It's all about learning

There is some very sound advice in this thread

Looks good to me. This is ISO 1250, of course there will be noise.

In this particular case, you didn't have to use such high ISO. The subject was stationary, so there was no need for 1/2000 s shutter speed. 1/500 s would be enough, which would bring the ISO down to 320.

But in general, there's no way around dealing with high ISO with that combo. Shooting anything that requires a fast shutter speed will force you into high ISO territory even in broad daylight. Same goes for shooting when there's not too much light. That's the reality of shooting at f/9.

As for feather detail, lighting conditions have probably the biggest impact on that. Your example showcases probably the worst case scenario. Try shooting when the sun is fairly low in the sky and position yourself so that it's lighting up your subject more from the side. I'm sure you will see big improvement.

Good luck. And have fun with that lens. It's great fun shooting with it.

Bruce DW wrote:

Well that is definitely an improvement in the feather detail. Thanks so much for taking the time.

You are most welcome

BTW, your acknowledgement of each commenter is very commendable.

DxO Photo Lab 4 or Pure Raw are game changers.  So is Topaz Noise AI.  Any of these three programs will reduce noise without degrading the resolution mych.

Bruce DW wrote:

I'm uploading a picture I took today with a crop of it. The pelican was fairly close to me. It shows the noise problem to perfection. So disappointing.

Anyone else had this problem? Any ideas?

Thanks in advance.

ISO 1250, 1/2000, F9, MC-14, 235mm

Did you raise the exposure, shadows in post at all? That will reveal noise like this. If that was the case, I'd expose enable the shadow/highlight loss indicators. You might be able to expose for the shadows to the point where you lose some highlights or unimportant areas. Dial back the highlights in post. That said, as an E-M1 mkII owner I am not surprised seeing this amount of noise at this ISO.

Occasionally/absentminded/heat of the moment  overshoot with super high shutter speeds and ISO but in hindsight, you can lower your ISO probably a stop or two.  1/2000 shutter is really fast for what looks like a fairly stationary bird, walking bird. I'd be comfortable with 1/500-1/1000. I'd lose the telecon too so you can drop a stop of loss there. The crop may be sharper too than an teleconverter shot.

There are also a lot of noise reduction options. I did a trail of DXO PhotoLab 4 and liked what I saw with their Deep Prime noise reduction set to 0-10 luminance. It won't add detail to your feathers but it would look about a stop cleaner. There is a practical limit however. ISO 6400 and above where things are going blotchy then you're just getting a cleaner blob slab.

Faster lenses help too. You can get the 50-200mm F2.8-3.5 for cheap with an adapter. A little short however for reach.

1)  If you must shoot at ISO 1250 then you need serious noise reduction. I recently bought Topaz Labs Denoise AI, and I think it works very well.  Takes a few seconds for a full size JPEG, but it really does a great job.

2) If possible (and I'm sure it was possible, in bright sunlight) shoot at ISO 200. Or maybe 400.

Nice shot, Bruce.

Looking closely, it looks like your sharpening mask is just set too low, so the algorithm is sharpening too many parts of the photo.  Sharpen it to the hilt, then pull up the sharpening mask while viewing at 100% and you'll get an idea of at what point it stops trying to sharpen noise.  Usually, I see this in blurry backgrounds where a low/off sharpening mask causes the blur to crystallize visually.

Martin Muehlemann wrote:

Bruce DW wrote:

First post here, so thanks in anticipation. I've read plenty of other posts and have learned a lot. However, I haven't found a solution to my issue. Noise.

I have been playing with the Olympus 100-400 on the camera and was sure that it would produce tack sharp pictures. ...

Anyone else had this problem? Any ideas?

Thanks in advance.

Welcome to the Oly 100-400 with MC-14

....

I love the rendition of my EM1.3 using the 17mm Pro and the 45mm Pro, but when it come to long telephoto in mediocre conditions, i have not found a Oly solution.

Photolab 4 can help a lot

Cheers

Martin

Shooting 800mm equivalent require very, very good technique if you want sharp pictures, nothing to do with Olympus, and everything to do with the focal length. The 100-400 is pretty sharp, and a very high probability that soft images is the result of less than perfect technique. Even shooting at the low end 100mm, require careful handling, and hand held shooting with IS enabled while maintaining a very stable position and very gentle pressure on the shutter button to achieve anything near good sharpness. When I shoot at 450mm equivalent (APSC 300mm) I always use a tripod and timer release when possible for optimum result, and that's not even near 800mm equivalent.

I have not read all replies but many give good info.

I am attaching your photo run through DxO PureRAW + aq tad sharpened.

I have happily used your combo on an OM-D 1 MIII at ISO 6400 and run it through DxO PureRAW with excellent results. Prior to the DxO software, I would limit my shots if at all possible at ISO 1600.